Poor customer service

Since I am having holiday until early in March, I would really like to enjoy this precious period by doing something else besides communicating with the world via Internet. As an ASTRO user, I used to subscribe to some channels that I prefer to watch such as sports channels and documentary channels. However it would be wasteful to keep on subscribing to these channels considering the fact that I was staying in college for months while none of my family members is interested in sport or documentary. Now it is time to resubscribe to those channels.

On the last day of 2010, I browsed through the official website of ASTRO to gather some information and found out recently there is a newly introduced package called high definition (HD) package which includes some sport and documentary channels! I was so delighted. I made some calls to seek for customer service, and as expected, we will need to reinstall the hardwares. However the installation fee and the cost of new hardwares are waived as long as you are bound to an one-year-contract with extra RM20 added to current subscription fee per month, which is quite reasonable. I was promised that their technical team would reach within 10 days. What? 10 days?

"Maybe this HD package is in a high demand in Alor Star nowadays," I thought.

So the days passed by until it was the seventh day of waiting. I was wondering, if they do take care of customer satisfactory, they wouldn't choose to perform the installation procedure on the last day of promised period. I tried to reach the customer service again, and he confirmed with me the technical team will surely contact my father as the account holder in the next few days. So I kept on waiting. I hoped it wouldn't take long because there were some interesting football matches I would really like to catch up. Moreover, my holiday is going to end soon with everyday passing by so swiftly.

It was the tenth day, and I realised they had missed out the important phrase. The "ten days" was meant to be "ten working days". Thus I was again told to wait for a few days in frustration. However we didn't receive any phone call even though we had been waiting for their service for more than 10 working days!

I constructed an email to voice out my anger and disappointment. Having called ASTRO for more than 8 times, I wasted about RM10 as I needed to key in the numbers, listening to the repeated instructions for a considerably long time that charges during the calls. To my surprise, it was clearly stated my email would be read and replied within another 3 days. I recalled my customer service with Dell when I discovered my newly bought laptop was having some problems with a faulty hard disc inside. I sent an email on the first day, and got the hard disc exchanged on the second day. I was so shocked by their efficiency.

I couldn't wait anymore. I got the phone numbers of the technician in charge of my residential area and started calling him. However, the office number directed my call into irritating voice mails, whereas no one picked up my call when I dialed the cell phone number. This lasted for 3 days.

When I was about to cancel my subscription, they contacted us. Right at the time I was constructing this blog post, 17 days after my initial call to subscribe the HD package. Typical customer service in Malaysia, I would say. Don't ever think you can always dominate and monopoly the market when the fundamental support is actually from customer's trust.

And, customer's trust is earned, not given.

Reflection (Part 1)

Having participated in Biro Tatanegara (BTN) course that lasted for five days, I'm going to share what was going on throughout the camp. I had the urge to share my point of views while I was having the course, however it is not easy to recall every single incident that happened and come out with an overall review based on what I had been thinking.

BTN, in case you have not come across with this term, and if I'm not mistaken, was introduced at the early age to mould the youngsters who were thought to raise disciplinary problems in school. Recently it was further modified to fulfill the need to instill patriotism in the government servants and those government-servant-to-be. I guess this is also one of those preventive measures in reducing brain drain.

We didn't have enough sleep during the course, but we did not need to worry about hunger. They provided six meals including breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Teatime would fill in every empty slot of schedule. You would never feel hungry. There would be almost at least a piece of chicken and a fish for every participant in every meal, which is quite costly. The accommodation was the best part of the camp. We were provided a clean dorm with eight bunk beds and new furniture. The campsite is relatively isolated from the city and near to a beach, thus we would feel the calm and windy weather.

On the first day, I was so surprised to find out the campsite actually has a wifi source, and managed to steal some time and stay connected to Facebook for a while before our mobile phones were confiscated throughout the next four days. However most Maxis users received poor signals from the base stations of mobile phones in this remote area. Despite the fact that even if we took control of our own mobile phones, we cannot connect to the outside world with no signal coverage, still, I guess 107 of us were all having a hard time without mobile phone in our pockets.

The whole course was just mainly about presentations and group trainings that involves some aspects to build a civil minded and patriotic soul. Every morning we had to wake up at 5.30am, slightly late comparing to Muslims. We had to take part in so called moral lessons when the Muslims were attending for their morning prayers. After that there would be morning training session. I did not have any experience in marching or foot drill, and it is embarrassing and insulting when the commanders were no happy for he expected everyone of us must have joined a uniformed unit or national service before.

In my opinion, it is just a personal matter whether anyone of us chose to join a uniformed unit, and don't take that as a compulsory when it seems that joining a uniformed unit would greatly help one to obtain extra co-curriculum merit and secure your university seat. Just allow me to speak a little out of topic, I just find it ridiculous when people were so surprised to find out the fact that I, as a PSD scholarship holder, do not hold any certificate of a uniformed team at all. My point is simple, everyone has his or her own liking, interest and time management. When the government is practicing a moderate way of encouraging youngsters to take part in uniformed unit, we can make up our mind to give a full commitment in other kind of co-curriculum activities and the outcomes are beneficial as well.

Back to the marching part in every morning, I truly enjoyed the session as I learn something new instead of listening to cliche that has been aggressively reiterated during speeches given by trainers and facilitators. However when I further analyse the speech content as well as activities curriculum, I notice they had unevenly distributed what they want us to learn and understand in the course by national civic bureau. We were exposed to the content of constitution of Malaysia in different ways. However they just focused on some important clauses. According to the syllabus stated in the official website of national civic bureau, we are supposed to learn about the latest issues, patriotism, the nation history, the government system, social contract, constitution of Malaysia and others. However what had been greatly emphasised was the social contract and some particular facts included in the constitution. I'm glad to learn all of these, and eventually I catch the main point and agenda of the course, which is to indoctrinate participants to understand the social contract based on constitution. Not to say we learn only a little about others but honestly I was a little annoyed by the way it had been emphasised.

Nevertheless, at some point I'm still holding on to my ideology. I would reflect on it and figure out more to share with you next time.

BTN

Finally the final examination is over and this definitely puts my A-Level course to an end. I have given my best shot in eight of the papers and hopefully I would be able to obtain the newly introduced and also the highest grade of the grading system, A* (A star, quite similar to the A+ in SPM). Before going home, all of us would need to attend BTN (National Civics Bureau), a course that is prepared by the government for those students heading oversea in the future and others. The aim of this course is mainly about instilling patriotism by exposing each of us to historical lessons. This should be interesting, however I'm a little worried as when I was digging some information regarding this course, I came across with a lot of negative feedback. One of my seniors who has already taken the course advised me not to take what would soon be exposed to myself personally. Some controversy arose, and issues were discussed as some news reported that BTN has been proven unfruitful to fulfill the aim, and including some sensitive and biased remarks. At that time, our Prime Minister had shown up and promised the syllabus of BTN would be further speculated and made vary to synchronise the aim when political parties were hotly debating about whether to abolish this controversial course or not. So it remains until now, and it is my turn to experience it. I'm sure I would have a lot of stories to share here after this. Hopefully it does change in a positive way after coming across with intense criticism.

p/s : I spent a number of money, just to buy the strictly designated costume, and everyone needs to do so.

Abolish examinations?

I can still barely remember the title of continuous essay I chose to elaborate on while taking English paper during SPM examination in year 2008. It was asking for the advantages and disadvantages of examination. I thought I had given my best shot and expected to score a satisfying result, but I had to face the fact that my essay could only rank B4 in the 1119 paper (it is the English subject of GCE O-Level examination) when the result was released.

Based on what I read, examination was first introduced in ancient China when the emperors required a system to evaluate the nationwide scholars. Their knowledge of history, their personal virtue and capability in handling or solving problems such as military dilemma and economic crisis would be heavily tested within continuous days, restlessly. Passing the exam was a prerequisite before scholars are awarded the authority of managing a designated mission as "cabinet member" or what has been famously known as "guan", the court officer who was involved in judiciary decisions. During that particular period, serving the government under the emperor's name was the ultimate ambition of every man. They had no choice but sit for examinations.

After centuries, examination is seen to have assimilated into different nations. It eventually becomes one of the most common evaluative measure conducted to different groups of people in various ways, but with a similar objective. Examination has always been hotly debated for its disadvantages as what is happening recently in our society of Malaysia. Policy makers announced it is the time to reevaluate this measure as it seems to bring more harm to students. At the same time, people are suggesting the need to modify the flawed education system by reintroducing a relatively dynamic learning method under an atmosphere that appears to be more conducive and less stress. The most possible outcome is that one or more significant examinations would be abolished.

In my opinion, straight to the point, examination is a system that was well practised for a long term of time before people could really find out its harm. Further analysing would tell us the colossal and accumulative stress does affect the students adversely. However I believe moderate stress is the best motive force that keeps our pace in track when we own a target to achieve.

Another thing we concern is, how are we going to handle the problem of a large number of fresh graduated primary school student with "unknown potential" in their enrollment of secondary school? Apparently there must be a final exam such as UPSR to do this job.

PMR might seem less significant, thus it would most probably be abolished. However, when we reflect on the benefits of taking PMR, candidates can actually find out whether he should prepare himself to pick up subjects of art stream or science stream. Having prepared in PMR, students can be mentally prepared to sit for SPM too.

Examination in Malaysia has been mechanized and doing not-so-good in its quality control. It can be improved, but not easy though. I am wondering why the policy makers do not prefer to modify it before getting rid of it.

Whether there will be a real abolishment or not, this is the critical moment whereby people's concern has finally brought about some stirred movement in the cabinet. However, this is also the moment when a considerate attitude is needed to reach a compromise, or else the latest generation of students in Malaysia will get trapped in the uncertainties in their fate.

If the government does take care of this issue so much, do remember to reevaluate the recognition of Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) of Chinese Independent High School and tune the huge injustice gap existing between the preuniversity programmes.

I remain positive to receive the next news.

The controversy

Since it was announced that the grading system is slightly changed to introduce a higher distinction namely "super distinction" for SPM, I had been wondering how it would result in a different outcome regarding the proportion of candidates scoring the so called perfect result in a particular subject or all of the subjects taken, which have been limited to 10+2.

A grading system is like a measuring tool. It is designed to measure something. It should be moulded and calibrated considering the main aspects - is it too long or too short to measure the full size of the object? Is it sensitive enough such that smallest division used is helpful to give a reading including the significant figures needed? Can it be used to measure different objects, and give a comparison of them? A bad tool is not meant to be a bad tool as it might still be useful to measure other objects of different requirements. Applying the same analogy, I soon realised the new grading system is not competent enough to calibrate the candidates nationwide from the same batch in a credible and sensible method.

The SPM wouldn't be so important if it hasn't been included in the main consideration taken into account while the government department such as Public Service Department or other party such as National Bank is going to determine scholarship winners. Therefore SPM result is often related to these scholarships because they are closely linked. To maximise the chance to qualify oneself as the applicant and at the same time secure such scholarships, scoring a perfect result is necessary. It could be scoring all A1 based on the previous grading system or all A+ based on the current grading system. These are so called "perfect result" which would guarantee you, or at least it is very hard to deprive your chance to secure the scholarship provided by government. This is why candidates used to take more insignificant subjects, leading to improvement made to the examination system whereby maximum number of subjects taken has been limited. However, the flawed remains flawed until today due to the lack of transparency as some parties are still seeking for explanation for the unsolved yet prolonged problems, or even some conspiracy as mentioned by others.

How if there are too many perfect scorers? I didn't expect to know there is a large number of "perfect" scorers nor did I believe it if approximately 90% is the official threshold as reported. I'm not certain whether the number of candidates who managed to score A+ for any subjects is almost equal to the figure of the previous batch of candidates, however and still, there is something very obvious and provoking - the steep gradient between Chinese subject and any other subject. All of that is just playing with the normal distribution. Apparently it is not hard to set a threshold with the marks needed as the responding variable based on the proportion of the distribution required artificially. For example, if we want only 8% of those, let say 10000 of them who take a particular subject to get an A+, we can easily determine the threshold of the marks needed for the A+ by considering the lowest marks obtained by the candidates in the 8% of distribution. We might question how if the overall performance has greatly declined and what other changes should be made. In this case, a smaller proportion can be selected, for example, 5% or lower. Therefore, this flexible method is not applied blindly, but considering all the possible situations with a fair solution.

It has been a known fact that the "hardest" subject appears to be Chinese subject. In case you don't know how "hard" it is, you can ask any of your friends who were sitting for SPM in 2009 and could proudly tell you he or she had gotten an A+ in that subject. I don't have an official figure nor statistic for this, but it is fairly easy to spot the flaw when you heard there is only one hundred and more candidates scoring A+ nationwide, while a school could have equal number of candidates achieving the same result for any other subject. Why is the percentage of proportion scoring A+ for Chinese is less than 1% while other subjects can have relatively high percentage such as 8% or even more than 10%? All we need is an explanation.

Put the grading system of SPM aside, I would like to share some of my views towards the distribution of PSD scholarship. I used to think it is the best to give away the scholarship to the best brains. However when I further reflect on this issue, I think of wealth gradient among the people in our country and the way our government is trying to minimise gradient. We can't let the people in poverty to stand in the tight competition alone, that's why some policies such as free tax or extra subsidy are introduced so that they can have a better living condition, although it is still considerably terrible. This issue would be less controversial if everyone understands that. However it is not easy to protect everyone...

[To be continued...]

I'm here, far away from my hometown

For the very first day I came to Sepang whereby its roads vary so much from the map given by the JPA, taking more than an hour finding the location of the smallest college in the world in the remote town. I guess everyone who had been coming for Kolej Teknologi Timur would be in surprise once he saw the location and the size of the college which is far beyond his expectation as if he had gone to the wrong place. This college appears to be a single-blog-building comprising of our hostels above the lecture halls. It is very long, about the length of 13 shops in a row.

First day ( 06/07/09 )

• I discovered that there are so many scholarship holders coming all the way from Sabah and Sarawak, maybe 40% out of the 112 of us who will be going to India for medicine.
  
• The lecture hall which I registered as KTT student here is smaller than my previous tuition classroom.
  
• Tranquil, this is the best word if I'm to describe this place by using only a word.
  
• I had established the wi-fi connection provided by the college as a trial user, which means that I will have to subscribe to the "KTT HOTSPOT" for RM40 per semester starting from next week. However I didn't have adequate time to stay online.
  
• The hostel is old, but it is spacious. It consists of two small sleeping rooms and a wide living room ( 10 feet x 26 feet ) . My roommate is a Chinese from Sarawak and a Kadazan from Sabah as a housemate. There were only three people occupying this room.
  
• The advertisement board was fully pasted, there were all the second hand items to be sold by the seniors. I saw a “special combo”- a fridge and a washing machine which costs RM600 for the total.
  
• I bought a set of original Chemistry and Biology text books for RM300, I got two free gifts - a disc with questions of pass year papers inside and a Chemistry reference book under the package. This is the first time I spend so much in purchasing books.
  
• I met my seniors from the same secondary school here. There are five currently but two of them ( Indonesia-bound ) will be leaving the college by this week after their 1-year-programme.
  
• During this orientation week, we would be divided into 10 groups. When it was the time to introduce ourselves to the other group members, we found a girl who is not willing to do what she will be doing soon, dentistry. She told us she was forced by her parents to do so.
  After voting, our group was named “Aramaiti”. It simply means the sharing of joyfulness among the people.
  
• We heard something scary and mysterious. It has something to do with the “Tangga 11” while my hostel is just located at tangga 10. The facilitators didn’t want to tell us more about the story. We instinctively thought ghost incidents happened there.
  

Second day ( 07/07/09 )

• I was facing a difficulty in remembering my group members’ names, especially the Malays’ during the ice breaking session in the morning.
  
• All of us have to prepare something for the group performance in the coming closing ceremony, and my group got the title “ Dikir Barat ” ( a kind of Malay cultural performance whereby there are rows of performers sitting on the stage clapping their hands and singing accompanied with the music of Malay traditional musical instruments. ) I knew what it is but the other Chinese in my group seemed never heard of it.
  
• We had to create cheers for our team, however I didn’t have any idea. ( I was experienced in creating cheers, but in Chinese )
  
• We were made clearer about how to use the transport system in this college. There are three vans and a bus which charge different payments for different places we want to go, such as LCCT, KTM, Giant ( the nearest fast food restaurants are available there ) etc. We have to purchase a ticket in the library before using the service.
  
• I paid another RM260 for the old books and pass year papers to my senior. They are all in photocopies.
  
• There are two cafeterias in my college, Indian style (Mamak) and Malay style. The roti canai is my favourite :D
  
• I washed and ironed my clothes for my very first time, by using hands. I know what you are thinking, I never helped in household works before.
  

Third day ( 08/07/09 )

• The lecturers were emphasizing “cut-off points” for A-Level repeatedly. We have to gain 12 points taking from the best three subjects. For an A, 5 points will be given, 4 points for B, 3 points for C and so on. That means, in order to clear the cut-off points, we have to at least get three Bs in the examination. However getting only 3 Bs is below my target.
  
• We had a lot of briefings about the rules applied to us in term of our behavior. The penalty for all the violation towards the rules is money-related.
  
• I felt very sleepy throughout that particular day. I was suffering from sleep deprivation. The mosquito last night was furious.
  
• A telematch was held. We played four games. I felt they still have a huge margin to improve in designing games for us.
  
• The group members started to call me “Leng Zai” which means “smart or handsome guy” in Chinese (-__-lll)
  
• The seniors started to knock our hostel doors to promote their items for sale.
  
• We took the whole night to collect the ideas for our performance. We created a poem talking about KTT. We found it tough to create the claps and the melodies.
  
• There came another housemate, a Muslim from Sabah. He is friendly but a little bit shy.
  
• I had booked the plane tickets from AirAsia company for two to-and-fro trips for the coming semester break in August ( 22-08-09 to 31-08-09 ) and Hari Raya break in September ( 17-09-09 to 27-08-09 ).
  
• My roommate, John is experienced in Internet business, the field that most of the same people at the same age with us don’t traverse in.
  

Forth day ( 09/07/09 )

• Our schedule from the morning until the afternoon was fully arranged with subject briefings. The heads of subjects were giving some words regarding the subjects we are going to taking once the lesson starts in the next week. I will have to take Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and also IELTS which I worry the most.
  
• They college did an aerobic exercise for us. It is as similar as the previous telematch.
  I went to the top of the small hill located behind our college. I could see that the small town was slightly covered in haze. However there was windy. It is an ideal place for everyone to release tension and enjoy the refreshing air.
• We spent the whole night practicing “Dikir Barat”. All of us did a good job in giving cooperation and the complicated performance was soon settled in fast progression.
  
• The girl who is miserably choosing the wrong course remained silent and looked saddening. The facilitators had counseled her.
  

Fifth day ( 10/07/09 )

• A female Indian sitting in front of me showed me her hand phone that remained intact although it was accidentally flung out from the balcony on the third floor while she was waving to the seniors passing by.
  
• I have registered the subjects I will be going to take - Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry and Biology.
  
• My housemate, Ali told me that Chinese is diligent in his point of view. He salutes us very much. However in my perspective it is academically obssessed, not really diligent.
• I was dressed in Malay costume for the first time.
  
• We turned out to be the champion of the group performance competition :)
• My housemates watched Madagascar until midnight.
• I found that the Malays are totally different with me. We don't even share a sense of humour. Most of the time I can't understand their slang.
  

That's all for the first five days. I enjoyed very much during the orientation week. Although sometimes I would find it hard to resist the sleep-inducing-tone of the lecturers while briefings ( I didn't fall asleep ) , we do know more about the college lifestyle, the average learning hours for each subject, the operating system of the library etc. Starting from next Sunday, 13-07-09, I will be sitting in a lecture hall listening to the teachings by the lecturers respectively. I will post some of the photos in the next time. Keep in touch!

Does it really matter?

Race barrier could be seen everywhere in my country.

When I was in my secondary school which comprised of Chinese in majority, the Malays were badly discriminated by the others. The school had always been grouping the Malays to particular classes, perhaps it was just promoting racism as there were two totally different societies which seldom mix nor communicate. Quarrels or fights often sparked off between them due to lack of respect and tolerance. Some of them even dared to challenge each other by insulting their religions respectively.

I faced the problem when I was taking part in a poster designing competitions held under anti-drug campaign. I was the only Chinese. ( It is normal when there are no or less Chinese attending a campaign. In fact, they don't even know there is a campaign ) I could feel it, the racist and unwelcoming expression from their eyes. I was rather peeved when I came across the biased judgement which had deprived my winning seat for so many times. I did tear my certificate into small pieces in anger after that, irrational and impulsive, I know.

Religion continues to be a sensitive issue in our multiracial nation. Until today, the invisible stumbling block is still remained unsolved. The Chinese society has never been satisfied by the commitment of the government on solving the problems or meeting the demands such as funding for Chinese-language elementary schools. The Malay society feels offended, thinking that their privilege presents in different quota systems are getting eroded when the other races question and comment on it. Moreover there will be a big change according to the "One Malaysia" plan. The Indian society was provoked when some of their temple was going to be demolished and it had precipitated resentment which was then fueled by other artificial and racial coloured issues. The situation had gone worse when they started protesting in an aggressive manner via Hindraf which was then declared illegal.

The former Prime Ministers had failed to break the barrier among the races. What will be the next suitable strategy proposed? How about the outcome? No one can presume it.

But I'm sure, we can make the difference if we don't see the difference.

Note: I didn't do much research while mentioning some of the topics. I'm sorry if there are inappropriate or wrong statements. Feel free to correct it :)

Matriculation

When my friends had enrolled in the matriculation course, I thought they could start adapting themselves in the new learning environment without having any extra problems. However the luck was not at their side.

Some of my friends were not allowed majoring in Biology. The authority insisted them to take Physics by depriving their right to choose what they needed for. However, the bumiputras were granted the same right. The uproars lasted for two weeks before it could be settled down. I wondered if they did consider the possible consequences by doing so. One of them had already left the unfavorable college to enrol in form six before the positive respond came upon their appeals.

Besides that, puzzlement arose when those who were awarded JPA scholarships to pursue their tertiary study in one of the local public universities, had to take matriculation. However there were lack of instructions by which college to stay whereas there were scholars who were already accepted by their matriculation college respectively. They sought for help from the seniors in forum or any other similar ways. My friend also told me that he was then accepted a list of local public universities he could apply for but the top universities such as UM or USM were not in the list. He wondered if it would be better to reject the JPA scholarships.

It was just a mess.

SPM

“We want to streamline this as it will also be an easier way to determine the awarding of scholarships.”

Some 450,000 students sat for the SPM exam last year.

Muhyiddin said teachers would also be able to focus better if students were only allowed to take up to 10 subjects because they would not be burdened with teaching other subjects.

“Parents also will not have to rush their children for too many tuition classes.”

On the grading system, Muhyid-din said instead of giving students 1A, B or C, their grades would include A+, A and A- from next year to make it more effective in deciding who was most qualified for a scholarship.

(quote from The Star)

I have put the quoted phrases in bold as I found they are arguable. I wonder if the government did pinpoint the real flaws existed in the previous SPM exam system, analyse deeply and then make the decision wisely.

• Easier way? Even if the subjects are limited, the problems remain unsolved if there are still a bunch of candidates with a string of A1s under the artificial low threshold to score an A1 for each subject ( except BC ) . The JPA will be in hot soup again, just imagine that there are possibly more than two thousands 10 A1s scorers waiting for their deserved oversea scholarships, yet not to mention the bumiputras and the poors to be taken care.
• Focus better? If they really mean it, why do we ( non-Malays ) need to study Pendidikan Moral ? It is utterly useless!
  
• Tuition classes? Normally students who attend insane number of tuition classes just don't know how to manage their own schedule. They follow the tuition teachers blindly, but it has nothing to do with taking more subjects which don't really need tuition. It is subjective and depends on the students. Some students don't need tuition at all.
  
• Grading system? Well, what is the difference between getting 10 A1s and getting 10 A+s? I thought the term CGPA will be recommended when I saw grading system. To really make it more effective in deciding who is qualified for a scholarship, improve the grading inflation is the only way and once it is really tough to secure the A+, I believe no more candidates will consider taking so many subjects.

There will be another change soon, which is now debated hotly. Perhaps the controversy arose when the JPA scholarship had not been distributed evenly is the main reason to push the government to make the decision of limiting SPM subjects from the year 2011, but what is the motive of changing English to a must-pass-subject which is as same as Bahasa Melayu, to secure the SPM certificate? This is a stepping stone to bring the deteriorating command in English back from the edge but I don't hope to see that another artificial threshold is created again after finding that there are just too many who can't make it.

Malaysia, my country (part 2)

If you are a streamyx user, I suppose you at least called TMnet Streamyx customer service once before. Yes, I'm one of the Internet users who are always displeased by the snail speed service provided by streamyx. Feeling frustrated, my family had changed the so called "money-saving-package" from RM88 per month to RM66 after finding it promised more than it provided. We have been calling for customer service but it couldn't really help a lot. They insisted us to perform the similar procedure every time, that is restarting our router which we had done it by ourselves about more than a thousand times. Apart from that, I'm afraid I couldn't find anyone of my friends who is satisfied in his or her broadband service too. However, according to my friend who has been studying in Singapore for a while, the speedy broadband which enables the users to establish its connection to stream smoothly even in a car, is now available there at a much cheaper cost. It is saddening when our ministries are planning whatever plans in conjunction with vision 2020 which has something to do with multimedia advancement while we are still troubleshooting the basic and minor line problems.

Some of the constructions in our country are fragile enough no matter how much money derived from the tax payers our government has invested in. It was clearly shown when the roof of the RM300 million 50,000 capacity Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium in Gong Badak collapsed within one year of completion. Fortunately no human life was taken, but we can't ensure for the next time if we are lucky, can we? I'm not going to push all the responsibilities to the contractors but I wonder why the government would give full trust to the bumiputra contractors who know only appointing sub contractors who in turn appoint "sub-sub contractors" and then "sub-sub-sub contractors". These companies don't have the intention to build them and what they know is just securing the government projects to earn big money by providing "cheap materials". Certainly there are bribery and corruption in between the government and the cronies. I know, you know, without having to spell it out. It is interesting to wait for their explanation as there was an engineer who often jogged in the area of the stadium had officially informed and warned government agencies about the bending frame which held the roof. It just went to the deaf ears.

*Luckily I had saved this post in Word Pad before publishing or else I might have to write it again, it showed "page not found" after I clicked PUBLISH, frustrating huh?

Malaysia, my country.

After being inspired by the "what you don't like about Malaysia" thread in recom, I would like to point out my two cents too.

I love Malaysia, it is a lovely country for everyone to live in, but there are some imperfections in certain aspects which can be a kind of disgrace among the Malaysians.

There are plenteous citizens who are lack of courtesy and not civil-minded. Just take a look at our public toilet and the streets. I can't withstand the terrible stench of the "blue box" after jogging in a park when it was the time for me to answer the nature's call. Gosh! It might just take ten more seconds to put me into nauseous state after I peed and of course, flushed it which most of the people didn't. ( I think I'm over-exaggerating it :p ) If you are a rubbish collector, in Malaysia, thanks god! You will have a lot more of work to do. Those people, might have a thought that everywhere can be a rubbish dump as long as it is not in their houses. I recommend the city administrators to be very strict in applying the rules to apprehend those law offenders like how the Singapore government is doing now.

Secondly, I feel irritated by the politicians who advocate Ketuanan Melayu. Ketuanan Melayu is not a right. In fact it is a negative sentiment created with political intentions. During the early states of Malaysia the Malays were discriminated in term of economy, therefore the federal constitution had awarded them this specific privilege in order to recover their involvement in economic activities. At that time, the Chinese and Indians were still having strong ties with their countries respectively. They just fought for own benefits instead of to be united and cooperate with other races. They felt that they were second class citizen. Now all things are changing except the "granted privilege". The PM proposes the idea of One Malaysia. What? Are there any fragments in our country like Korea? Actually our majesty is just trying to clear the race barrier once again and encouraging us to do all good for our country without considering more about racial benefits. However, the Malays felt challenged when our PM decided to alter the Malaysian New Economic Policy (DEB) in conjuction with the idea of reducing the reliance of the bumiputras towards the government as well as enhancing self improvement in them. They argue that it opposes the Ketuanan Melayu. Actually I try not to offend anyone but now everyone is born here, grown here, and educated here. Malaysia is our home, we love our home. Yet we ( non-bumi ) have to face a lot of hardships. It is like not allowing a criminal's child to redeem himself because of his parent!

I would like to condemn the corruptions happening every now and then too. Blatant Corruptions! I would not know how to explain if a foreigner is asking me about this. I can still barely remember there was an international corruption level report "awarding" our country with quite a top rank. Furthermore, our money has been sucked through tax paying while the problems of poverty, infrastructure advancement and degrading local universities are seemingly left aside. These could be seen as one of the consequences of corruption. The judiciary system, err, I don't dare to criticise much but if it really happens to be like what the people are saying at the coffee shop, political motivated and biased, I'm not sure if Wawasan Malaysia will once again be delayed, maybe 3030? 4040?

The election, my first impression is : The parties promised almost everything they could just to gain more votes as if they will be the best administrators if the city, but did they actually fulfill the promises once they won the election? Have the people's voices ever heard? Look at the Perak's politic nonsense which occupied the headlines of the newspaper for several days. Democracy is the people's decision, means it should be the people who decide which party to represent them to voice out their demands in the parliamentary level. Is the judgement of the courts democratic enough? Every side has its own sayings. But I wonder why they don't hold one more election for the people.

Frankly, our country has a huge space for improvement. We have no qualms to sacrifice for our country. It's our only home, the lovely home.